


The more enchanted the idyll

by felix814



Category: Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-23 17:05:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17687444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/felix814/pseuds/felix814
Summary: George Wickham at a Meryton assembly; before and after.“The more enchanted the idyll, greater must be the pain of its ending”Georgette Heyer,Venetia





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nabielka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nabielka/gifts).



Now

He stood with careful grace: tall and disciplined, but with a slight relaxation in the disposition of his arms that suggested a certain friendly ease. It made the best use of his military regimentals and consequent effects upon the female heart, and yet was not too stiff. Fatal, he thought, glancing to his right where poor Major Winthrop sat tensely in a high-backed chair, clearly too aware of his newly granted rank to risk dishonouring them with even a friendly smile. 

The right approach, George thought, with a distinct thrill of self-congratulation, is charm. Opens all doors. And I am habitually considered to be a charming fellow.

A fellow officer, and a singularly unprepossessing man, Carter leaned sideways on the wall and spoke a little teasingly, “Why, Wickham, do I find you here all alone?” 

George smiled -- a charming smile, if tempered with a little harmless contempt for the man in front of him -- and nodded his assent. Taking Carter’s unsober condition into account, he expanded the gesture into an elegant sweep of his wine glass. 

“As you see. But, my friend, by standing here I am entirely fulfilling my purpose in this assembly; one that I cannot either abandon or relinquish to another.”

A couple of ladies a few steps further down the room turned slightly at this speech to gaze in his direction. Their conversation, George noticed, had petered out into wishful sighing over the lack of any real dancing, and they clearly required some better diversion than each other.

Might as well begin a plan of attack here, he thought, directing towards the women a sideways flick of the eye and a swift smile, tacitly inviting them into the conversation. 

The ladies unconsciously swayed closer towards the two military gentlemen in the corner, faces brightening at the prospect of an interesting answer.

“My role in remaining here alone is two-fold, and answers my purpose in being at this assembly: firstly, that I may lend greater consequence to my fellow officers: they have the happy superiority of attracting the company of charming ladies -- in comparison I make the poorer showing, and they the greater.” 

In giving this frivolous explanation, George carefully did not notice the subtle advances of the two women. He effected a credible sigh and, letting his head drop an inch or two with his gaze on the wooden planks of the flooring, continued: “Secondly, that I have the best vantage point in the room with which to view the elegant figures and pretty countenances of those ladies whom, in my poverty and insignificance, I am unworthy to address.”

At the close of this speech, he risked a brief sideways glance through his eyelashes at the nearer (if not quite as handsome) of the two ladies, before raising his head again to his companion and smiling wistfully into his dull, unobservant face.

Carter blinked, and raised his wine glass to his lips again, accidentally sloshing some of the contents onto this cuff of his sleeve. 

The nearer and less attractive lady, blushing slightly, stepped towards George, her hand clutching a glass a little closer to her body and marginally compressing the bountiful lace adorning her breasts. Freckled, George noted dispassionately.

“Mr Wickham, really,” she exclaimed breathily, as her companion also stepped and clutched, one beat behind. “How you tease! Which of the ladies here have been so cruel as to neglect you; point them out to me, I insist.”

“But really, really, you are too kind,” burbled the other, evidently also a little worse for the hostess’s free hand with the wine. “To take any notice of our beauty, when to be sure you must have seen many finer women at the grand balls in London!”

“But none who had for me half the attractions that I find in this room tonight,” George answered lightly. “Miss Sampson; Miss King -- I promise that there is nowhere else I would rather be tonight, and no-one else I would rather be with.”

After

Later, George recounted the better part of the evening’s conversation to an attentively smirking Eliza Bennet, while lounging on her father’s garden bench and feeling, for the first time in days, genuinely as relaxed as he took so much trouble to habitually appear.

God bless intelligent company, he thought, fluttering his fingers in imitation of the women’s coquettish airs, and watching the laughter spill from his fair companion.

“But how strange,” Eliza remarked amusedly, a few moments later. “Your unkind acquaintance Mr Darcy made much the same remark to myself and Caroline Bingley when I was staying at Netherfield.”

George’s ease momentarily deserted him. He felt, for bare seconds, the constriction of the chest that accompanied most unsolicited references to Fitz. He regained his composure in the next breath and coolly drawled, “Oh?” 

His face betrayed only an expression of tolerant amusement. Nothing else is permissible.

“Something similar, at any rate,” she amended, watching him with her curious eyes. “He excused himself from joining Caroline and I in our walking the room, on the grounds of being better positioned where he was, to see our figures to the best advantage.”

“How unexpectedly gallant of him. But he copies all his best material from others,” George assured her. “I fear Mr Darcy is not given to take pains of original thought, when it comes to pleasing others. Did he amuse you? I can speak lightly of him, you see,” he added, catching her look of surprise, “for the Christian virtue of forgiveness inspires my heart with no greater malice than to laugh at his foibles.”

She flicked out her delicate wrist and brushed several fallen leaves from her skirts with a brisk, decisive motion. “This is a forgiving spirit indeed, which I, alas, cannot emulate.”

Her tone and demeanour were outwardly calm, but George noted the temper behind them and registered a sensation in his own breast akin to warmth and, oddly, gratitude. A pity that her poverty makes her entirely ineligible for my plans, he thought. I like the image of Eliza Bennet championing my cause. The excellencies of a warm disposition and a loyal heart. I have known so few such people, though perhaps more than my share. 

“I am in charity with your policy, sir!” she exclaimed, regaining her habitual smile. “And yet I cannot say that I derived much amusement from my visit. Owing to the repressive Mr Darcy, the superior sisters, and the lingering illness of my dear Jane, I had little occasion for mirth. The only cordiality was found in the society of Mr Bingley.”

“As you say,” murmured George. “A most engaging man.”


	2. Chapter 2

Now

Oh God, thought George. I will never be free from this. 

The lively discourse of the gentleman beside him at table has inspired a lively smile upon his own lips; how could it not? George Wickham is always pleasant and pleasing company, and willing to bend an ear to the chatter of a foolish old man, especially when he happens to be possessed of two daughters with three thousand apiece; not a bad prospect.

“And my son, my Richard, you know,” the man eagerly continued. 

George attentively nodded, and internally consigned the man to the devil. He hadn’t the slightest acquaintance with Son Richard and based on some half hour’s conversation with his father, wouldn’t wish to obtain one. 

“He might be looking about him soon for a little property of his own. We have Wright house, after all, but a man needs something to build on, for the future. And there are some very pretty properties in this neighbourhood, and I dare say my son would not be worth less than a fine establishment like Netherfield if Mr Bingley were ever to give it up, I dare say so indeed!”

A little caught off guard, George longed to murmur something cutting about the probable cost of such a house, knowing to a nicety how the jumped-up merchant’s financial affairs stood and how he aimed a degree too high in imagining such a blessing for his heir. 

He exclaimed more politely, instead, and offered some pleasing remark about the agreeable aspect from the larger morning-room in that house.

“I don’t suppose you have any information in that quarter, hah?” the old man hazarded, aiming an inquisitive eye at him, and lowering his voice a little. “I had heard that Mr Bingley intends to buy land in Derbyshire and build his own little establishment.”

“I am flattered,” replied George smoothly, pointedly not matching his interrogator’s confidential tone, “to be considered privy to his plans and desires. But I must disclaim such close aquaintanceship.”

The gentleman remained irritatingly un-snubbed. 

“You do, however,” he continued, leaning closer, “maintain a strong degree of friendship with the Bennet family; why, all Meryton knows how frequently you visit Longbourn.” 

George tensed. I hope not, he thought sharply. I have lately been at pains not to give that impression, considering my designs on Miss King. 

The distasteful conversation limped along. “And her elder sister Jane is, is she not, fairly well affianced to Mr Bingley!”

The words provoked a painful sensation, but then George had heard this piece of gossip from many other quarters, including the mother of the lady herself; his previous familiarity with Longbourn had also provided him with opportunity enough to dull the pain by repetition.

One day, he thought, I will hear of his marriage to an unexceptionable young lady; it will only sting for a short time and thereafter this weapon will cease to be effective. It will not be long. 

“I am aware,” he admitted, hoping to end the discussion by giving the fool a small tidbit, “that Mr Bingley is fond of that part of the country: I know he greatly admires his friend Mr Darcy’s estate and would wish, I think, for something similar.”

It might even be true. Charles had waxed lyrical about the beauties of the place as if half forgetting that George himself had been reared in its halls and fields, and could have told Charles much about it that he did not know. If he could bring himself to talk of his childhood, which as a rule he did not, with Charles.

Forestalling another line of questioning upon Mr Bingley’s domestic plans, George moved to turn the conversation towards something more material. “I imagine your daughter much enjoyed the summer she spent in Derbyshire -- at Chesterfield, was it not? -- with her uncles,” he said invitingly. “I hear she was quite the most admired lady at the assemblies there.” 

Caught by this bait, the older man immediately began to recite the minute history of Miss Emily’s social triumphs in that provincial town, elaborating on her friendship with a local baronet’s daughter, and glossing over the aspects of Chesterfield trade in which the said uncles were engaged.

The conversation, now securely on a more tolerable footing, needed little input from George. He smiled, and made admiring comments at regular intervals, but was undistracted. His mind seemed restless. The earlier questioning on Charles’ future plans had touched on old memories, and, infuriatingly, it was almost impossible to keep from remembering Charles’ voice, and smile, and bright eyes on those days when he had talked over his plans for buying an estate. 

Before

“For it is a necessity, George,” he said, sighing, as they lay on the thick sheep-grass at the far end of the meadow. “And a hard one for me, I fear.”

“Difficult, certainly -- to be left a paltry hundred thousand and forced to make shift! Why, supposing your heart should light upon a Norman castle, or medieval abbey in the wilds of Yorkshire; how could you endure having to choose a lesser residence?”

Laughing and blushing, Charles begged him not to refine too much on his thoughtless words.

Grinning a little nastily in mockery, George would not comply, but attacked again: “Too well I know your romantic soul to believe you content with a mere Georgian country house. For you it shall be a palace or nothing, with crumbling stone and crenellated towers, with stained glass windows celebrating the glories of centuries past--”

Charles went on the attack at this point, still in the throes of mixed merriment and mortification, twisting his body to lay his weight more firmly on George’s chest and endeavoring to stop his mouth with his hands.

“-- and the gardens! Will ten thousand acres be sufficient? Including, naturally, a good-sized village, some two dozen hothouses, a trout lake; but then, you do not particularly care for such things, how stupid of me--,” laughing himself as he dodged Charles’ determined efforts. “And certainly a mere lake will not satisfy you half so well as a waterfall, thundering into an abyss which the sun cannot penetrate, disgorging mist enough to transform the sunlight into a dazzlement of colour!--”

Any more fantasy was lost into Charles’ mouth, as he pressed George more closely into the grass and kissed him passionately into silence, at last.

After a suitably energetic interval, they lay together in the impossibly bright and warm autumn sunshine. George mentally rationalized that it was only reasonable to enjoy the weather, the pleasant prospect for the day having been their excuse for abandoning the rest of the hunting party. 

He idly picked a few strands of grass out of Charles’ hair. Uncomplaining, Charles hummed happily, turning his face into George’s shoulder.

“Are you asleep?”

“Mm. No, just--” Charles grinned, eyes still closed, and reached up to skate his fingers across George’s temple. “Isn’t it wonderful here? Surely we don’t have to leave for hours yet.”

Hours and hours. It has been weeks already and time has passed so sweetly, George thought. How strange it would have seemed to me in the spring, meeting Charles for the first time. 

And I was only going to wrangle some ready money out of the fellow. He drew Charles’ questing fingers to his mouth and lightly kissed them.

“I was thinking,” murmured Charles drowsily, “and you don’t have to, of course. But it might be pleasant to visit Fitz over at Pemberley in November.”

George’s head fell back against the grass with an irritated thud. If there were any sympathetic powers in nature, the sun at this moment should retreat behind a cloud and cast a gloom upon this place. Perhaps there could even be rain, he thinks viciously. Apparently unbothered by any such sympathy for George, the sun shone down with as much light as ever.

He took and breath and willed his voice to be even. “I would rather not.”

Charles was silent a moment. 

“I can feel you tensing. And -- your heart is beating faster.” He rested his fingers briefly at the side of George’s throat.

George felt sick, suddenly. Charles’ previously comfortable weight now seemed oppressive, and he longed to sit up, push the other man away. Instead, he took another breath, and turned into him, burying his face in Charles’ hair.

“Sweetheart. I do not have wholly pleasant memories of that place--” groping for an excuse, he came up with, “my father’s death, you realize.”

Charles was instantly penitent, half-rising to meet George’s eyes with a sweet look of conscious guilt. “I was not thinking clearly, my love. Of course we will not.”

Relief seemed to settle on both men, smoothing the tension from their bodies. They shared a kiss, lingering and gentle. George felt reprieved and a little ashamed, but not enough to keep him from recanting the false excuse. It will be better for everyone that Fitz and I do not meet in Charles’ company, he thought. 

“Perhaps when I find my own establishment,” Charles added, as if unwilling to let the subject drop entirely. “You will always be welcome there, of course. And Fitz will frequently be a visitor, I am sure.”

George sighed, but let the moment pass untroubled and simply stroked Charles’ cheek. The wretched business of the house, indeed. Was there another man in England whom he could have borne, so innocently boasting of his wealth and fortune and wide-open prospects? 

If it were anyone but Charles, George considered dispassionately, I would have smiled at him while insulting his father, and then gone on to fleece him at cards.

But there had always been something special about Charles.


	3. Chapter 3

Now

Some kind of argument was happening in another corner of the room. 

A girl, no older than fifteen, was standing mulishly by the high-backed fortepiano while an older woman -- wearing a dress with a truly ridiculous number of flounces -- whispered to her angrily. The stool for the instrument was presently occupied by another lady who had, some few minutes before, finished a competent Pleyel sonata to loud if inattentive applause. 

“I am happy to give up my seat,” George heard her murmur, in low but carrying tones. She seemed uncomfortable with the scene immediately before her, and had half-rose from the stool before the mulish girl stopped the movement with a hand on her arm and a short whispered reply that contained the moody phrase “don’t _want_ to!”

The older woman gave a tight smile to the general assembly who, as it happened, seemed mostly engrossed in conversation among themselves and had not noticed the little contremps by the instrument. George was himself in a small knot of talkers who apparently did not require his participation in the discussion at present, leaving his attention free to wander.

“Really, Charlotte, how childish,” the woman snapped in a piercing undertone. “You know you must perform and show the company how well you have been taught. Do you wish to waste all your lessons?”

The girl’s reply was lost in a sulky mutter, while the other lady politely looked away from the two combatants with a disinterested expression. 

“This is not for my benefit; do you think I talk thus for my own amusement? I am doing this for your own good,” jerking away the girl’s restraining hand on the other performer. The young lady rose with alacrity, gladly ceding her place to the unhappy girl presently forced before the fortepiano.

“Ah, Miss Charlotte!”

She was soon hailed by a loud-voiced gentlemen on George’s right side who had observed the change of performers, although possibly not the scene that had preceded it. 

“Do give us a treat, dear,” he entreated, with several others in the room joining in, clearly accepting if not welcoming the recommence of the musical entertainment. 

“So shy! She might need a little encouragement,” explained the triumphant -- mother, George decided, observing familial resemblance, and thinking that only such a relationship could condone this level of officiousness. 

As the hapless girl began to play, stilted and uncertain, a fashionable concerto by Piccini, George looked at the beaming parent at her side and smirked. These little altercations did so enliven a dull evening. 

After

On a cold January day George stepped out onto Macroom Road, pulling his coat more tightly to his chest, thinking only of the items which the Colonel had desired him to purchase and the probable difficulties attendant in walking to Covent Garden from here. Possibly a hackney was required? 

Crossing behind a carriage drawn up on the opposite side, he briefly examined a sign advertising house rents, neatly stepped onto the bridge, glanced sideways towards the river, looked back towards the church, and almost walked immediately into Charles Bingley.

Charles looked beautiful, and surprised, and -- George was shocked to see it --- deeply unhappy, with uncharacteristic furrows in his pale brow, and a poor excuse for a smile.

“My dear Charles,” George gasped, automatically putting out his arm for Charles to clasp. “I did not realize you were in town, or I should have called earlier.”

The other man appeared distracted. “Oh yes, though I thought-- assumed that you were in Hertfordshire.”

“I am,” George said slowly, recovering his wits, and silently regretting his overly warm greeting. I need to extricate myself from this, he thought.

“We have not been on good term lately, I know,” Charles offered in a quiet voice. “Almost as strangers in fact -- you did not come to Netherfield, George, as you said you would.”

George wondered blankly how he was supposed to untangle the delicacies of their past and present relationship on a busy London street. Already they were causing a slight obstruction in traffic.

Thankfully -- or not -- Charles did not appear to need an immediate response. “Regardless, I am always glad to see old friends again,” he continued with a short, desperate-sounding laugh. “Are you staying in town long? There are some tedious balls and such that I am promised to this week; they would be enlivened by your presence.”

In a lower, more intimate tone: “I would be happy to find you there.”

George grasped the subject of social frivolities with glad relief. “How is this? You have friends enough in London to make any tedious gathering less so, and in any case you were not wont to find anything lacking in social amusements, and meeting new friends.” 

“I have so many friends,” Charles said tightly, “all looking out for my best interests. And of course there are many pleasant things to do and see here; there is a new play at Drury Lane I am enjoying very well.”

“But you are not enjoying polite society at the moment.” 

“Perhaps I am missing the society of someone in particular,” Charles suggested bleakly, smiling at him with polite desperation. “George -- if you are not engaged this hour, do you think--”

George relented. “Let us step into the taproom down the street.”

At Charles’ ready assent, he lightly directed his friend to the house in question with a strong hand between his shoulder blades. “It is a cold day and a glass of something will do us good,” George continued firmly, if inanely. “And old friends, when they are met all of a sudden, must be entertained.” 

It is well that George had retained no lingering hopes, no doubts about the end of their connexion, no profound wish to be first and always in Charles’ heart (though the last is a lie, a damned lie) for it enabled him to sit in the back room of a rather dirty tavern for nearly two hours, amusing and comforting in turns, while his dear friend stuttered and shrugged and finally confessed, in half-despairing terms, his passion for Miss Jane Bennet of Longbourn.

I am being punished, George thought, listening to Charles justify, several time over, his sisters’ and Fitz’s interference in the affair, their criticisms and scolds. Why must I be in this cursed position of sympathizing with Charles over the loss of his angelic Jane; why cannot I stand up and walk out and breathe freely, or sneer and laugh at this farce and so be rid of your company for ever, or kiss you and kiss you and take you _back_. 

“Fitz said that I was being courted for my fortune,” confided Charles miserably, “not by Jane herself -- no one, not a soul could ever think that of her -- but that her family, you know, might be pushing her to accept me; not that I believe it! Although Mrs Bennet did, in my hearing, speak of wishing her daughters to marry rich men. Fitz called it mercenary, terribly harsh language, but he is often right.”

And what more violent language would he have used if privy to our relationship, George wondered with black humour, pressing another glass of wine on his companion and resolutely keeping his mouth shut on the number of ungentlemanly names which Fitz, damn him, certainly deserved. 

He shuddered minutely, remembering that brief, uncomfortable interview with Caroline Bingley, how she had cried and begged and demanded with frantic eyes to leave Charles alone, a scene which he believed will always be a secret between the two of them. An unlikeable woman, George thought, but sincerely devoted to her brother. 

As he sat and talked and listened for the third consecutive hour in an increasingly ill-smelling room, George felt again that curious mix of emotions which Charles always -- has always, will always -- stirred up in his breast; anger and envy both at the love Charles so easily received from all and sundry; which made his family and friends go to any lengths to protect him. And a deep, self-conscious desire to be that protector himself.

Fitz would have killed with me his bare hands, he thought, murmuring some soft reassurances to Charles’ strained eyes and mouth. If he would go so far to keep Jane Bennet’s innocent person from Charles, what would he have done to my poor pretensions?

At least I know now, he reminded himself, signalling the surly waiter for another bottle, that none of Charles’ earlier plans for introducing them together would have been met with any success. And I spared him that, at least. I spared Charles that pain.


	4. Chapter 4

Now

A scream of laughter from the hall caused heads to turn in surprise and amusement. A couple of George’s fellow-officers appeared at the door to the parlour, apologizing in breathless voices, barely containing further mirth, and explaining to the room in general in a rather disorganized fashion, that they were searching for the children’s games. 

“In the tall cupboard of the back room, beside the fireplace” reminded their hostess indulgently, from her supine position on the sofa. “It is very good of you to take the trouble, I’m sure.”

“Not at all, ma’am,” promptly replied the elder of the two, “we of the King’s forces are delighted to serve on the lowest and highest planes, whether in the farthest reaches of wild Africa, or the tallest shelf of the deepest cupboard in your back drawing-room.”

With the younger soldier still giggling, they retreated back into the hall and were heard throwing open what was hopefully the correct door. Most of the guests in the parlour appeared to be entertained rather than affronted.

“Much license is given to these fellows nowadays,” remarked a portly gentlemen somewhere behind George. “Too bad, really.”

His mainly female companions protested to the effect that it was an informal party, and the officers were charming company, with one matron declaring in a pointed tone that it was so wonderful to see that _some_ people were willing to give their time and trouble for the sake of others, while others merely consulted their own inclinations. A young man whose features bore a distinct resemblance to hers, flushed a little and muttered about the children not needing more encouragement to be naughty, but he was roundly ignored.

I could hardly have found a more pleasant town or society, George told himself. These people seem to fall over themselves to approve of us. I need to move, to make use of this, find an eligible lady and advance my prospects. Where is Miss King?

But all of a sudden he found a strange lassitude in his limbs. His dinner-companions had been tiresome, and the gossip about Colonel Forster’s new wife unappealing. For some reason the gaiety of the party felt sickening rather than invigorating, and the laughter and good humour singularly stupid. He wished for peace, and instead bowed in the direction of the agreeable matron.

“We are happy to find such a warm welcome in Meryton,” he voiced, as she beamed in a self-congratulatory manner from across the circle of guests. “With such kindness at every turn, however will we be able to leave?”

Before

“I suppose you must away with the rest of your regiment before the fortnight is out,” Charles had said wistfully, catching a stray curl of George’s hair and gently rubbing it between two fingers. 

George tensed: they were alone in the billiard room with the door closed, but merely 10 steps down the hall in the drawing-room were the rest of the guests, drinking and talking and laughing with loud and happy inebriety. If the door opened abruptly George could move to the side, slide behind the edge of the table. No, he thought. Too sudden a movement. Better to lean down towards the green baize surface as if lining up the cue. 

Charles looked ruefully at his friend and let the curl fall from his hand. “I can hear you thinking,” he observed, moving to take up his neglected mace. 

“Should I refrain?” George inquired with mild irritation. “This is a festive occasion, I suppose, and it behoves us to be merry--” 

Charles sighed. “I meant no criticism.”

Taking his mace in a firmer grip, George sighted down its length. “But of course, my dear Charles,” he breathed out, before letting the wooden pole move smoothly across the table to strike the white ball. “You never criticise. I would rather characterize your behaviour towards myself as _fretting_.”

The ball rolled somewhat unevenly across the table, nudging another into moving closer to the pocket, although not quite inside. Charles looked a little hurt, so George redirected his eyes towards the game and maintained his offensive position.

“Not so much in what you say,” he clarified, watching Charles slowly line up his next shot with a cool, detached expression. “But I think you are unaware of how often you touch me.”

He moved around the table, identifying the ideal placement for the next assault. 

“You clasp my arm.”

He lifted the mace.

“You brush my thigh against yours beneath the table.”

He bent towards the surface of the baize.

“You wind my hair around your fingers.”

He aimed at a cluster of balls. 

“Dangerous, Charles.”

The shot took both the red and the green into the pockets, and George exhaled in satisfaction, rising and lifting his eyes at last to meet those of his opponent.

Charles did not seem to notice the game at all. He looked pale, and upset, and a little angry. George waited for him to say something.

“I cannot touch you anymore?” he said at last, jerkily. “This is-- are you trying to tell me-- to communicate that you wish to, to end our connexion?”

He appeared on the verge of being distraught, body tense with the desire to -- do what? Leave? Move closer to him? The situation was uncertain. George gripped the mace a little more tightly, nails scraping against the wood.

“As you mentioned,” he replied, gazing fixedly at the other man, “I am shortly to leave Salisbury with my regiment. You, I believe, are to stay at Mr Westrother’s as a member of the house party for the entire winter, are you not?”

“I am promised for Christmas,” Charles said slowly, uncertainly.

For all the world as if we were discussing nothing more momentous than our social engagements, George thought with a vestige of amusement. Were if not for the way Charles looks. At least I am calm and undisturbed. 

“It has been a pleasant run, has it not?” He turned his attention back to the game. His eyes felt slightly hot for some reason. “But the heavens, my lamentable occupation, and your social calendar have decreed that we must part, and I see no reason why this cannot be done with care.”

No response from the other man. George found that he did not care to look at him, so he did not. “And so I feel it necessary to give you a friendly hint, Charles,” he continued sweetly, “not to let your feelings lead you into any public impropriety. It will be painful at first, but I dare say soon enough you will not miss my company--”

Charles moved abruptly, with uncharacteristic violence.

“Of course I will miss you!” he cried, striding toward George and gripping his shoulders with unusual force, as if the pressure of his hands would communicate what his words left unexpressed.

“You are a happy creature, Charles,” George retorted, fighting now to seem unmoved. “I believe I know you fairly well by now, and my estimation of your character--”

Stumbling on his words for a moment, George bit back the many hundreds of things he could say about his man and his impossibly dear ways.

“--is that of complacency. You were happy before we met, you were happy in my company, you will be happy after we part ways.”

He breathed in sharply, feeling Charles’ hands loosen their hold on his shirt.

“It is a gift,” he insisted. “One of many you have been blessed with.”

Charles had let go of his shirt and was staring at him with a lost expression, misery clearly writ on his face. “In other words,” he whispered, “I am an unthinking, privileged fool who blithely goes his way in the world,”

_Yes_ , George thought defiantly.

“Who cannot appreciate the cares and troubles of others,” Charles continued bitterly, “and is dully, stupidly satisfied with everything he meets with, you think that of me. Do you not?”

End it, George thought quickly. I need to end this now. He tried to think of something hurtful to say or to do here, but his customary command had deserted him. It is true and it is not true. Charles is that and he is more. A self-pleased, unthinking idiot with all the graces of beauty, fortune and good humour, and no cares. But how immeasurably do I love him for all this.

Without quite intending it, his hand stretched out to Charles’ face. Charles did not flinch back, or step away, or strike him, or anything else he deserves. He looked like he was waiting for a blow.

“Sweetheart,” George began to say, and his voice cracked. He could not speak, or move.

Charles moved forward and clasped him around the neck, pulling his mouth down to his. The kiss is soft and gentle, with nothing of the passion and urgency that had characterized their relations the previous night, when George had stolen into Charles’ room.

We are saying goodbye, he thought. I could be cruel, I could hurt him. I want to. Or I could follow his lead for once, and be kind.

“It’s all right, Charles,” he muttered when they broke apart slightly, still holding Charles in the circle of his arms. “And I know you will miss me, as I will miss you.”

Charles shuddered, relaxing into him and winding his arms more securely around George’s neck. “And we shall remain friends?” he asked hopefully. He tipped his head a little to the side and smiles pathetically. 

“We will,” George promised, and thought, we will not.


	5. Chapter 5

Now

“We must have dancing!”

The cry had first gone up from the young lady in the faded green muslin, but was quickly echoed by many other impassioned voices. The women were clearly the prime agitators here, but the men were not far behind. Amused, George watched the bashful Sanderson almost trip over an ornamental table in his haste to join the clamor -- and the side of Lydia Bennet, whose hand he was evidently bent on claiming for the dance.

No time to waste then. He had counted on dancing as a feature of the evening entertainment, even though the hostess, whose children were all too young to be out, had a fairly lackluster interest in the activity. She had said, “Only if the young people are wild to do it,” but it appeared that they were. Glancing over his shoulder, George saw her giving directions for some of the larger items of furniture to be shifted. 

He strolled forward, noting as he did that another guest was making his way towards the same quarry. Privately reflecting that Sanderson was an idiot, he made no attempt either to hasten his steps or bring the lady’s attention to him: instead, he kept a measured pace and nodded at a fellow officer who was attempting to claim one of the Wright girls. 

The other gentleman, a solicitor’s clerk in the local firm, was already at her elbow and appeared to be making a correct, if rather formal request for her hand in the country dance.

“I am sorry to disoblige you, my friend,” said George apologetically, as he reached the two, making an exquisite bow. “But Miss King has been promised to me for the last hour.”

The lady in question blushed all over her freckled face -- a disquieting feature common to persons with that kind of complexion, George noted at the back of his mind -- and said, pleased, “Oh, but you know, sir, we did not know whether there would even be any dancing, then.”

“And yet you promised me your hand; moreover, as you can see,” sweeping his hand to the bustle of the room, “there is indeed dancing. I appeal to you, sir, as a man of the law, is she not bound to her prior word?”

The man gave way with good grace. George remembered that he was one of those fellows who hung around the militia men in the local tavern, listening avidly to stories of military campaign. This uniform was valuable in so many cases.

Miss King was certainly not insusceptible to his charms; upon her other suitor’s giving way she rose from her chair with an alacrity that displayed a touching degree of enthusiasm, if little grace. 

One dance now, he thought, letting his fingers depress hers just a very little as he led her into the set. Elegantly, he moved her into position without making an overt show of the matter and calculatedly looked at her through his eyelashes. She blushed again.

The other dance later in the evening, once she has been treated to the dubious pleasure of the clerk’s skill, he thought. I will be partnering with another lady, someone considered generally handsome -- Eliza, possibly? -- but look her way in the set. She will not refuse me the cotillion after that, surely?

Stepping lightly, his hands clasped hers for the change over, and he momentarily felt the pulse thudding in her wrist.

Miss Mary King with ten thousand pounds. The thing is simplicity itself. 

After

George sat in the corner of a reasonably-priced public room in Newcastle, putting away a glass of hock in a rather desultory manner. He was in no hurry to return home to his lodgings and to his wife. 

The day’s work had been more tedious than usual, he thought. Damn if he hadn’t thought that his previous regiment could be equaled for stupidity; these Northern fellows were in many ways worse. While some were tolerable, having been reared in the southern or Midlands counties -- there was even a captain come up not two years from London -- the main portion were blockishly thick-headed.

George sipped at his dissatisfactory drink and idly considered the character of his fellow soldiers. Mindlessly implacable, he decided. Offer a simple suggestion or amusing comment on some superior piece of social folly, and they would merely stare at you with those lowered brows and say that things seemed ‘right enough, belike.’ Or, even more irritatingly, shrug and say nothing.

A door close to where George was sitting banged open with a thump against the wall, and two men shouldered each other through the narrow space, one of them already calling out for the tapster and two pints of small beer. The open door brought with it a current of frosty air that swirled into his own corner and sent a shiver through his coat.

Even with the door closed, a certain chill seemed to linger, and press in on him. His lodgings would be warmer, doubtless, if fraught with other unpleasantness.

Lydia was becoming -- difficult -- he decided, resolutely not thinking of the thankfully absent Mrs Bennet and how much her youngest daughter seemed to resemble her at times. She was still happy, still found entertainment enough in this bleak, unsociable place, and appeared to have gathered a coterie of female friends who all spent too much of their husbands’ money on ribbons, and giggled behind their hands every time he entered the room. 

That had used to be a pleasant sensation, he remembered. 

But somehow it was not so now. George bit his lip in vexation. He was conscious that Lydia was beginning to nag, every so often, for a variety of things he could not bring himself to give her: his attention and time, primarily. He was practiced at soothing her, but more and more often found that he did not wish to. 

George tapped a finger irritably on the table, remembering certain recent scenes. His wife responded badly to being ignored. Last night she had, frustrated, slapped half her dinner from the plate to the floor and accused him, “You were not like this before! In Brighton you -- why did you ask me to go off with you, then?”

He still did not know. 

With a sense of resolution, George pulled the glass closer and took a long draught. Why did one do anything, he thought unnecessarily, except in the pursuance of ambition, or to follow a transitory pleasure? And Lydia had been a delightful distraction at a very -- aggravating period. Even so, it seemed like nothing short of madness, from this position.

The glass was empty. George considered ordering more hock and simply staying in this secluded place at the back of the tavern, waiting there until his wife went to bed. Easier, surely. 

A cheer arose from the direction of the bar. The two men who had recently entered the establishment were apparently part of a general party, and were collecting a fair number of bottles and mugs from the tolerant tapster while calling for plates of food. One of them, his back to George, stood leaning against the edge of the bar, a hand shoved carelessly in his pocket and the other gesticulating with large, expansive gestures. Something in the ease of his body and the open, cheerful manner of speaking to his companions, evoked a memory. George thought briefly, strangely, that he would not be surprised if the man should turn, look in his direction, smile, and be Charles. 

Ridiculous, he told himself. Charles is far south, and -- would be unlikely to smile at him now. The Bennet sisters are now joined with Fitz in the enemy camp and surely, inevitably, that will have to include Charles as well. Perhaps not. But it is better not to know.

The laughter and conversation of the room grew oppressively on him. George suddenly stood from his table, unable to bear the noise. He settled his bill at the bar and walked briskly into the cold night air. Alone, he made a slow progress home.


	6. Chapter 6

Now

The dancing was over. Miss King, regularly glancing behind her, had made her way from the house: disappointed that the evening was over but very well pleased, he considered, with himself and their growing acquaintance. 

There were still a good number of people left in the room, but the talk now was largely of the kind that heralds the end of an assembly. Several of the older men talked loudly about the expense and trouble of keeping coaches; their wives searched for lost shawls and dropped gloves, wondering aloud that so many things could go astray over the course of an evening, but how pleasant it had been, indeed! Several young ladies were draped over the fortepiano, making a lethargic business of tidying up the sheet music, and mostly engaged in chatter over their respective partners. George spotted one of the fellows in his regiment draining the last of a bottle left inauspiciously on one of the tables. 

Not much more to do here but collect the drunker members of his group and make his farewells to the hostess.

It had been a decent evening, he thought tiredly. He had made considerable progress in the matter of Miss King, and even some inroads with the father of the Wright sisters, in case the first business happened not to work out. Some annoyances, some weariness, nothing that was not expected at this point in the winter. There had been many such evenings before.

And the winter was nearly over. Who knew what opportunities the new season would bring? 

George put down his empty glass and headed purposefully into the adjoining drawing-room to corral his friends; rescuing young MacIntyre from falling into the fireplace and enduring the jokes whispered at him concerning his choice of dance partner -- they would only be repeated, more loudly, on the ride home, free from social restraint. The room was warm, and the wine sang under his skin, making his voice more gentle than usual in securing the younger officers. The hostess smiled at him gratefully as she saw him take charge of the inebriated Carter and propel him towards the door.

“Mr Wickham! You are always welcome at one of my little gatherings. I hope you know how pleased we are with your company these few months.”

He gave her his hand in smiling gratitude. “Why, your entertainments have no equal anywhere in Meryton,” he promised faithlessly, noting her goodwill towards him. Something useful in that, no doubt. “I am so happy to be here.”

With their uniforms somewhat battered and askew, but filled with a sense of cheer, the militia officers made their unsteady way out of the door and into the moonlit night.


End file.
